The Exploration Company raised €5.3 million in a seed round led by Promus Ventures, and joined by Vsquared and Cherry Ventures

The Exploration Company, a Munich, Germany-based startup developing a modular and reusable orbital vehicle to be sent in space, announced that it completed a €5.3 million ($6.1M) equity fundraising round.

The money was raised from investors led by Promus Ventures, joined by co-investors Vsquared and Cherry Ventures.

The Exploration Company, incubated at ESA BIC Bavaria in 2021 by CEO Hélène Huby, Priyanka Das Rajkakati and Sebastien Reichstadt, develops, produces and operates Nyx, a modular and reusable orbital vehicle that can eventually be refuelled in orbit, and which carries cargo - and potentially humans in the longer run. Nyx provides a wide scope of missions ranging from 3-6 months around the Earth (and re-entry) to landing on the Moon (and coming back), or hopping 50-100km point-to-point on the Moon. Nyx can also resupply space stations and large space infrastructures.

The Exploration Company says that it also operates a SpaceStore that enables space & non-space companies to use (some of) Nyx key technologies to develop new applications.

It is part of the CNES Tech the Moon programme, and has in the works a first demo planned in 2024, a global orbit in 2026, a lunar landing for 2028, and a lunar boomerang mission for 2030.